Modi grew up in a Swadeshi RSS environment. His language and body language belongs to the shakhas. His mindset is forged there. But Modi realises that to be a national leader, he has to change.

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Narendra Modi was not born like Rahul with a dozen of silver spoons in his mouth.

Narendra Modi has been "anointed" to lead the BJP electoral campaign of 2014. The nature of celebrations and self-congratulations that followed made one feel like the battle has already been won. The BJP has still to learn the lesson of the disastrous "shining India" campaign. But one thing is clear. Modi represents something new. Even to his opponents like the writer, he commands a peculiar kind of respect.

Firstly, Modi is not a part of a club or an elite. He has climbed up the ranks. He was not born like Rahul with a dozen of silver spoons in his mouth. He survived running a tea shop. More importantly, if one looks at learning curves, Modi is an impressive man. He has learnt the art of power and skills a leader requires. He has worked hard and come up the hard way. To a Congress used to dynastic politics and family dominance, the idea must be alien.

Learning curve

Modi grew up in a Swadeshi RSS environment. His language and body language belongs to the shakhas. His mindset is forged there. But Modi realises that to be a national leader, he has to change. Modi watchers say Eliza Doolittle is little match for Modi. This man has reworked his dress, his nukkad language of threats, his style of threats, his grumbling about dissent into something more polished. The veneer cracks but to an aspirational India, he has become the success story.

This Modi narrative of tea shop-to-Lutyens' Delhi is critical. It is not that people do not value the power of family; they are tired and bored of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. With Rahul Gandhi, the family has reached the ultimate tedium and with Robert Vadra, the dregs at the bottom of a deeply dirty cup. Any face seems fresher, more promising, more decisive, and less pretentious than Rahul.

Modi's learning curve has centred around the earthquake rehabilitation development. In this he has mastered World Bank dialects, he sounds like a manager and corporate CEOs feel at home with him. Someone who collects recommendation certificates from Adani, Ambani, Tata, Narayana Murthy must have some claim to administrative substance. In an India swooning over electoral democracy, Modi creates a new site for debate, halos and contention and he calls it governance. Modi is shrewd enough to play the game of governance with a Congress which has almost a genetic claim to corruption.

Modi's capture of the discourse of governance is a PRO victory. One can almost say that Congress is suffering from a case of governance envy.

Modi's style makes comparisons inevitable. He might be loud but he sounds decisive, confident. Even his bully boy tactics provide him some redemptive moments. When the Congress Prime Minister sounds like a ventriloquist's dummy, a confident India wants a man to stand up for it in the world. People read into his body language and see him standing up against China. The sadness of Manmohan Singh is that he can barely stand up to Rahul Gandhi.

There is also a sense of asceticism and discipline to Modi. He has a sense of ritual, he can create rhythms for himself. There is something about the man which is both consistent and yet full of surprises. He appears interesting. One sees him with the same anticipation that one feels for a B-grade movie. He is full of action, or dhamaka to use Bollywood terminology.

A good listener

Modi is a good listener. He understands how to process information. He has a tremendous sense to follow up. While open to information, he is allergic to dissent. He sees dissent as ruining the power of his script. What is more impressive is the way he has won over people from Meghnad Desai to Madhu Kishwar to his side. Given his list of admirers, his opponents like me wonder if we are getting crotchety. Modi's phenomenal success in elections makes his opponents both tired and tiresome. One has to understand evil and fascism in depth to continue the struggle against him.

Modi offers a sense of the new, the loud. His career sounds like a continuous proclamation. He makes the world sit up and watch, feel curious about him. Next to him, Rahul, Sonia and Manmohan belong to the archives. In fact, his loudness becomes a form of vulnerability. He is ready to be hurt, he takes a bashing, one learns to regard him as both a bully and a fighter on the other side of the fence. He provides adrenalin that Indian politics desperately needs. He is not the politics of the mumbled word and the sagging morale. This is India crowning from the rooftops.

I almost feel I am writing a reluctant recommendation certificate for a candidate. Modi appeals and his politics excites the middle class and corporate honchos. A lot of young people feel a resonance with him because the Congress, like any dead serial, has tired them out.

The challenge

Yet the problem is Modi is not a challenge to the Congress. His populism and his authoritarian politics are a challenge to democratic India which values diversity, dissent and wants to dream beyond the World Bank Development Report. Modi's message is a synthetic imagination that needs new answers. It is as if India in its desperation with the Congress has produced two models. One a technocratic, conventional, and the other tentative, tiny, fragile as a hypothesis like the Aam Admi Party. Sadly, that is all we seem to have now, an alternative that is didactic and a suggestion that is valiantly fragile. The ball is with the forces of democracy. The challenge is how India rebuilds the imagination of democracy beyond Narendra Modi and the dullness of the Congress.